Populist Governance in Brazil by Carina Barbosa Gouvêa & Pedro H. Villas Bôas Castelo Branco

Author:Carina Barbosa Gouvêa & Pedro H. Villas Bôas Castelo Branco
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9783030850227
Publisher: Springer International Publishing

4.3 The Break of Brazilian Democratic Traditions

The break of Brazilian democratic traditions is present in Bolsonaro’s populist movement. Academic freedom has, on countless occasions, suffered an imminent attack.

In February 2018, the Ministry of Education threatened the teacher who offered a course entitled “The 2016 coup and the future of democracy in Brazil.” The discipline, offered by the Political Science course at the University of Brasilia (UnB), provoked an immediate reaction from the Minister of Education who asked for an investigation into the possibility of its creators having committed “administrative impropriety.” 37

The Legislative Decree Project 5/20, proposed by Congresswoman Margarida Salomão, intends to supersede the ordinance of the Ministry of Education that requires specific authorization for the promotion of public competitions for teachers in universities.38 Through the ordinance, the secretaries of the Secretariat of Higher Education and the Secretariat of Professional and Technological Education, both linked to the Ministry of Education, will disclose, together with the federal educational institutions, “the limits for the provision of authorized positions in the equivalent teacher positions and in the reference frameworks of technical-administrative servants in education for the year 2020.”

On April 30th, 2019, Education Minister Abraham Weintraub told the newspaper O Estado de São Paulo that the universities of Brasília, Federal Fluminense (UFF) and Bahia (UFBA) would have reduced transfers.39 According to him, “universities that do not have the expected academic performance and are promoting ‘mess’ would be included in this criterion. According to him, there were taking place at universities, political events, party demonstrations and parties inappropriate to the university environment.”

In May 2019, it was announced in Folha’s Coluna Panel, that the Minister of Education, Abraham Weintraub intends to cut graduate scholarships that finance research that he considers as ideological bias.40

In May 2019, the federal government excluded humanities courses from the CNPq (National Council for Scientific and Technological Development)41 scientific initiation scholarships. With the measure, undergraduate students from areas such as education, law, economics, social sciences, and philosophy will not be able to access the 25,000 scholarships offered by the federal agency. The exclusion of these areas from the public notice could even be considered unconstitutional, according to the president of the Research Committee of the USP Law School, Ranieri. “It is in the Humanities that the philosophical and political thought is built that provided the Rule of Law, the separation of powers, human rights, the democratic regime, civilizing conquests in which the Law has a fundamental role.”42

And, recently, Provisory Act 979 of June 10th, 2020,43 which sets the possibility of establishing provisional rectors, as reported by Moreira,44 is an arbitrary measure contrary to university autonomy. The law provides for the “appointment of pro tempore officers to federal institutions of higher education during the period of the public health emergency.” In this sense, it suspends public consultations in progress to define the triple list to be submitted to the president for the appointment of future rectors. In addition, it authorizes the Minister of Education to appoint rectors and vice-rectors for an uncertain temporary period.

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